1 THE . ':::ii m il : ; , 0 0 .._0 . too 0 . " . .,...". THE TALK OF THE TOWN Notes alzd C ommelzt I F countries were slnall, flat rectan- gular blocks, the dOlnino theor) m1ght be a useful priI\ciple for the conduct of foreign affairs. However, not onlv do co un tries not look like .I dOlninoes, they don't behd ve like thel1l, either. i\.nd the theory is not a thenr" at an but a rather seductive lnetaphor with ahnost no support in contelnporary history. The idea, as it is viewed frcHn vVash;ngton, is that a C0l1l11lun1st seizure of power in one country will exert an almost irresistible cOlnpulsion on ne Ogh boring countries to topple he- causE:' of insurrLction, perhaps with S0111e outs;de help. (1"'h 1 s is to be distinguished from the lnore falniliar truisl1l that un- opposed arlnies can conquer other na- t;ons. That is checkers and not d01l1- inoes. ) Yet the clear lesson of the past few decades is that real co un tries re- fuse to act like their hypothetical wooden counterparts. After the Second \Vorld vV ar, the Soviet Union was able to dOl1li- nate the Eastern European nations to thL precise exten t that its in vading ar111ies gave it control, and the war-weakened nations of \, estern Europe did not succumb despite ver} large COlnlnunist Parties in France and Italy and a guer- riIla effort in Greece. The United Sté1tes supplIed help but did not send arlnies to fight, and the dOlninoes relnained erect. In 1949, the world's biggest dOlnino, China, feIl to M ao Tse-tung. Yet in ahnost twenty) ears no other .(t1.sian nation has established COlnlnun;st rule, with the exception of North Vietnam-and that country began it struggle against French colo- nialisln in 1945, four year hefore there WdS a successful Chinese example to foIlow. In fact, if it had not been for COlnmunist China's restraining hand at Geneva, coupled with the fear that 1\1 a 0 , s vIctory had bred alnong the \Vestern povlers, it is probable that Ho Chi Minh vlould today be the peaceful ruler of all Vietnaln. On New Year's Day of ] 959, Castro l1larched into Hé1 Vé1n<:1. Yet the dire prophecies of further COlnlnunist succeSSeS across the helnisphel e have not lnaterialized. In fact, its Comlnunist Parties and would- be guernIla lnovements are weaker today, especiall) on the crucial and sYlnbolic battleground of Vene7uela, than the) were when the decade began. Even the lninor tnd partial Comlnunist trilllnphs in places such as the Central African Republic and Ghana not only failed to influence others but were thelnselves overturned. For that lnat- ter, the non-ColnlnunIst elnpire-build- ers, such as Nasser, have found their neighbors resistant to their ambitions. One Bligh t, indeed, ahnost posit an anti-dolnino theory: that neighboring coun tries of sÎ1nilar ideology wiIl tend to draw further apart. Thus Russia and China, China and North Korea, Russia and Eastern Europe. l"or is the dOlnino theory sÎ1np]y a contelnporary faIlacy. It has stirred wishful thoughts alnong revolutionaries throughout the lnodern age. Lenin and h=s colledgues expected the Bolshevik triulnph to set off revolu- tions across Europe. They were especially confident of Gerlnan) -and Germany's Fascist arlnies in vaded the Soviet Union within a quar- ter century. Similarly, lnany of those who helped lead the Flench Revolution be- lieved they would soon be joined by lnuch of Europe. ffi,.I- Yet it took the arlnies of Napoleon to force other states into an unwilling and telnporary association with France. Nor is a comparable, if lnore abstract, version of the dOlnino theory absent froln the rhetOrIC of our own revolution. Fortunately for the fearful and the apocalvptic, the dOlnino theory directl} conflicts with the one reaIly powerful and successful ideolog- ical lnovelnen t of the lnodern age: na- tionalisrn, and the desire to maintain national independence. Nor are coun- tries-even new countries-fragile and trel1lulously vulnerable. Each of thel11 c()ns:st of a people and a land with a histol r and a culture strengthened hy nationalist hopes and ambitions. There is sOl1lething of condescension .:is well as a l1lisreading of histor) in the as- sUlnption that these countries villI top- ple at the slightest push. Large povvers will tend to infl uence nearb) sl1lalJer states-though even this is not a rule, as Yugoslavia and Cuba have proved. Y t in the light of contelnporary history the dOl1lino théoI y dissolve , reminding us again that in toda} 's confrontations there are no final defeats, just as there are no final victones, and e"lch battle must be fought on its own ter111S. The theory is just another abstract and un- likely eÀerclse in historical prophecy- hardl) a solid enough justification fOI sending real Blen to fight real wars. UYalk T HE Vietcong Offensive and the Korean Crisis crowded the newspapel s and the airwaves, but peo- ple in town didn't seeln very talkative about either; they scel11ed Inore befuddled th,:ln OpÙ1- ionated. Thè) were keeping their e} es on what was close at hand. According to the United States vVeather Bu- reau, visibility was about three lniles, on the a ver- age-not bad but not good .(t1.ccording to the cit) 's l)e- "::" partmen t of .Lt1.ir P 011 u tÏon Control, the carbon 1110n- oxide was running a lIttle high-but not perilously high. j\cross the street froln our office, in front of Stern's, we saw about twenty people fornling a ragged circle on the sidewalk. Lt\t the approxÏ1nate center of the circle, a l1lan in é1 camel's-hair coat was bending down to exalnine the idewalk. He was looking for sOlnething, and was obvi- ously having a hard tilne seeing. 1\S tlr as he was concerned, visibility was just about zero,. He had lost a contact lens. Led b) the lnan in the canlel's-hail coat, the crowd inched along, with e'V- er) one's e) es trained on the side-